What We Think About Obesity Influences Our Actions

We already know our thoughts shape our actions. Some researchers say that scientists haven’t looked much at how people view obesity so they conducted a study to find out the lay persons beliefs on what causes obesity.

Why is it worth knowing what we all think about obesity? Well beliefs are “important because they guide actual goal-directed behaviors,” write the researchers in their abstract.

They conducted multiple studies in 5 different countries and 3 continents and found that most people believe one of two things about obesity:

Obesity is caused by a lack of exercise.

Obesity is caused by a poor diet.

Our Beliefs Dictate Our Actions

In their study, the researchers discovered that those who believed idea number one, that obesity is caused by a lack of exercise, were more likely to be overweight than those who believed idea number two, that obesity is caused by a poor diet.

They found this to still be true after controlling for “several known correlates of body mass index (BMI), thereby explaining previously unexplained variance.”

The researchers say that people who believed obesity was caused by a lack of exercise consumed more food than those who believed that obesity was caused by a poor diet. Thus, they write that “These results suggest that obesity has an important, pervasive, and hitherto overlooked psychological antecedent.”

Now of course, obesity is a complicated issue with many variables involved. However, is one of those variables what we think about it? It makes sense that if we think it has to do with a lack of exercise, that our focus would not be so much on what we eat whereas if we think that obesity has to do with what we eat, our food choices might be different over time as we try to make choices that might help us avoid gaining weight.

Sysy Morales is a staff writer and editor at Diabetes Daily and has lived with type 1 diabetes for 24 years. She has led dozens of diabetes education and motivational programs across the country and is a graduate of The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Sysy started blogging about diabetes at The Girls Guide to Diabetes after the birth of her twins to share how she maintained recommended A1C levels during that time. What she has learned about diabetes dramatically improved her life and she is now obsessed with sharing information that may help other people with diabetes thrive, too. At the end of 2018, her daughter was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.